Please Help Me Tune My Man

[Teleolurian]

No complaints. I'm inexperienced enough with the spell list to not know which schools to research; by the time I'd hit Ulm's capital, my research tree looked like: Conj-9 Const-4 Thaum-2. I had a Tarrasque and hadn't even cast Haruspex in all the provinces I owned yet.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Teleolurian:
I'm looking for advice on tuning my game/play style with this nation.

Pretender: Druid (erm, the extra-vine-summons guy) 6 Nature, 4 Earth.

Eek. Picking an human mage to pump only 2 magic paths isn't very effective cost-wise. If you want only earth+nature Bigtits is the way to go. She'll cost you less than a Druid once you buy some dominion candles, and she'll do much much more for you than a few extra Vine men or ogres. Forget building strong bless effects with a human mage.

Wizard's Tower

For Man admin matters much more than fast and cheap building. The Fortified City will give you what you really need, for 40 less design points.

1 Growth, 2 Order, -1 Luck; leftover points into Dominion.

That's 4 dominion if I count right. With the same scales and castle, a Mother would give you 6.

Order 2/Luck -1 is dangerous. Order 3/Luck -3 is cheaper, safer, and grant you a better income.

Minuses:
Longbowmen never hit anything.

With Wind Guide they're truly great.

Weak priests means my prophet is usually my starting scout.

Suicide him as soon as you can recruit an independent holy-3 priest. Look for amazon tribes.

Mage production sucks, since it's capital-centric.

That shoul be an incentive to pick the highest admin castle, and a prod+3 scale.

So, how do I tighten it? My armies were mostly Warden-centric, backed up by frontlines of Vine summons and flanked by longbows.

Sounds good. Don't forget Wind Guide if you use Wardens and LBs in the same army. I think the Virtue with lots of air magic is a good choice for Man, as Wardens are costly, yet very vulnerable to crossbows and LB friendly fire.

[Saber Cherry]

Originally posted by Teleolurian:
My armies were mostly Warden-centric, backed up by frontlines of Vine summons and flanked by longbows.

...

I've never thought of backing with a frontline, but whatever works!

As an aside - can you make mercs into prophets? That would be interesting to do with Terminus.

And Lastly~

Were you summoning vines with your pretender? That seems like a waste, when Man has a ready supply of cheap mages that, with ivy crowns, can give you all the vine creatures you want, and free up your pretender to do useful things at which pretenders excel (forge, research, search, fight).

[Gandalf Parker]

Generally I would use the ability to select the magics on my pretender to choose magics I CANNOT get with that nations mages. Spread out the spells you can do and items you can build.

Considering the bless benefits is something to consider also. 4 in any magic gets you something and 9 gets you something else.

Definetly choose castles with towers. Man puts archers in them (longbows?), and they can be very handy.

Keep in mind that the advantage of longbows is damage and range. They can be set farther back than shortbow archers. Setting them to the sides (flanks) seems to lower the chance of friendly fire hitting your own men

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:
I think the Virtue with lots of air magic is a good choice for Man, as Wardens are costly, yet very vulnerable to crossbows and LB friendly fire.

Hmmm, what about this one?

Virtue - air 9
Fortified City
Production, Order, Misfortune all +3
Other scales even, or if you want better econ and can deal with slower research, I'd suggest Growth and Drain both +2/+3
Dominion strength 6

Gives you great income, lots of Wardens that laugh at enemy/friendly fire, including your Crones' orb lightnings or wrathful skies, and hopefully you'll be able to spare some gold to max Warden production at your capital. You can't get nature-9 as efficiently I think.

Also remember you can put a Vine Crown (Construction 2) on a Crone and have them chainritual Vine Ogres. This can form up either a flank or the center, leaving your Wardens to be a flanking force. Also Vine Ogres have a Stratic movement of 2, so you can move reinforcements of them and Longbows together fairly quickly.

[Kristoffer O]

Originally posted by Saber Cherry:

quote:

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Originally posted by Teleolurian:
My armies were mostly Warden-centric, backed up by frontlines of Vine summons and flanked by longbows.

As an aside - can you make mercs into prophets? That would be interesting to do with Terminus.

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